Dear Beat Faithful, it’s almost that time again when witches and goblins cavort amidst sexy policewomen and the 456th Jason mask shows up on your doorstep and demands candy.

To get into the spirit of the season, we’d like to get Beat supporters in on the act. If you’re an artist with some Halloween art kicking around, send us a link or a JPG. If you send a JPG, make sure you send your website. We’ll post the results every day at the witching hour…6 pm!

You know the email…make sure you put “Halloween” in the title so poor Old Beat’s brain doesn’t get too befuddled.

Comments

Hey,
Does anyone have any good recomendations for a good horror movie, comic, or book? The TV seems to not know that it’s October. For books, I’m going to recomend The Cipher, by Kathe Koja. I think it’s out of print, but it’s a really frightening read, so go find it in a used book shop. Happy Halloween.

underrated horror movie — Gothic by Ken Russell. All about Byron and Shelley and Mary Shelley and what not, the weekend they all got crazy and Polmodori (sp) wrote his vampire story and Mary Shelley got the idea for Frankenstein.

In my book, The Shining is the all time scariest film, hands down. Closely followed by the Exorcist. Scariest book– The Road by C McCarthy. I also found the Perfect Storm scary– the whole detailed drowning bit. I am a sucker for old Karloff/Lugois films this time of year… The Black Cat is a fave.

Gonna re-watch Halloween. I love J Carpenter’s films.

How are the old Italian schlockers? Black Sabbath etc. Anyone? Beuler?

Moviewise: “Near Dark”, “Ghost Story”, “Angel Heart”, “The Ring”, and , on the lighter side, “American Werewolf in London”, “Fright Night”, and “Shaun of the Dead”. I also remember having been creeped out by parts of “The Curse” back in 1987.

After visiting Estes Park, Colorado and touring the Stanley Hotel, the setting for King’s novel, Batton and I bought and watched the TV miniseries of “The Shining,” which King wrote and produced. We then watched Kubrick’s “The Shining” after not having seen it in umteen years–what a disappointment!

The miniseries really captured the themes and the scariness of the book. Kubrick’s movie lost many of the key ideas, including Jack’s past problems and his need to keep his family together. There is no feel of a “family” in the Kubrick movie. What’s even more disappointing is to learn that Kubrick saw his film as a statement about how badly the white man has treated Native Americans! I highly recommended renting the TV miniseries instead.